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HOLOCAUST 

THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE 



Introduction by Henry J. Gwiazda II 

Documents compiled, translated, and captioned 
by Robert Wolfe for a poster exhibit in 1990 


National Archives and Records Administration 
Washington, DC 


0 zoi 

'h 

. n toss’ 

\ct c f3 


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Holocaust : the documentary evidence / introduction by Henry J. 
Gwiazda II ; documents compiled, translated, and captioned by Robert 
Wolfe for a poster exhibit in 1990. 
p. cm. 

Includes bibliographical references. 

ISBN 0-911333-92-4 : $3.50 

1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) — Sources— Posters. 2. United 
States. National Archives and Records Administration. I. Wolfe, 
Robert, 1921- II. Gwiazda, Henry J., II, 1942- 
D804.3.H655 1993 

940.53'18 — dc20 93-410 

CIP 



Introduction 



The other day I visited a German 
internment camp. I never dreamed 
that such cruelty, bestiality, and sav¬ 
agery could really exist in this world! 

It was horrible. 

— Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to Mamie Eisenhower 
Reims, April 15,1945 

I made the visit [to a German intern¬ 
ment camp near Gotha] deliberately, 
in order to be in position to give first¬ 
hand evidence of these things if 
ever, in the future, there develops a 
tendency to charge these allegations 
merely to “propaganda.” 

—Eisenhower to Gen. George C. Marshall 
April 15,1945, " Secret” 

When I found the first camp like that 
I think I never was so angry in my 
life. ... I think people ought to know 
about such things. It explains some¬ 
thing of my attitude toward the 
German war criminal. ... I think the 
people at home ought to know what 
they are fighting for and the kind of 
person they are fighting. 

—Eisenhower to Pentagon Press Conference 
June 18, 1945 


2 


World War II is an event so massive in scale and so far-reaching in effect 
that we still live with its consequences and struggle to grasp its meaning. Nazi 
Germany called into question not only territorial boundaries and the world 
balance of power but also Western concepts of progress, democracy, and the 
definition of humanity itself. 

War has always involved death, most obviously of military combatants, but 
the documents in this booklet reveal something very different: the heart of a 
campaign of planned genocide, the intentional destruction of deliberately 
selected groups of people. 1 The documents record decisions and policies that 
were part of a larger plan to create a new European social order based on 
race, a society that was being built by military force, mass resettlement, mass 
enslavement, and mass murder. Because this aspect of World War II raises 
profoundly troubling questions about human nature and modern society, it is 
important to understand these documents in their political and ideological 
context and in relation to the nature of the war and who died and why. 

It is helpful to start with the numbers of deaths in the war because they 
reveal significant disparities among countries. The total number of deaths 
worldwide is estimated to be from 35 million to 60 million. 


Examples of Estimated Deaths by Country of Origin in World War II 


U.S.S.R. 

Poland 

Yugoslavia 

Germany 

China 

Japan 

United Kingdom 
United States 


7-8 million combatants, 2.5-3 million of 5.2-5.8 million 
POWs, 7 million civilians 
600,000 combatants, 5.4 million civilians 
305,000 combatants, 1.2 million civilians 
3.5 million combatants, 780,000 civilians 
1.3 million Nationalist Forces, 13-22 million civilians 
1.3 million combatants , 672,000 civilians 
264,000 combatants, 93,000 civilians 
292,000 combatants, 6,000 civilians 2 


Because there were no major land battles on U.S. territory, it is under¬ 
standable that American casualties were comparatively low, in spite of military 
service by over 16 million men and women. What prompts attention and calls 
for explanation is the comparison between Germany and Poland or Germany 
and the Soviet Union. Why, when all three were invaded, bombed, and fought 
over, were so many more civilians and prisoners of war killed in Poland and the 
U.S.S.R. than in Germany? 

One explanation lies in the difference between the eastern and western 
fronts. The Nazis were in fact waging two wars simultaneously, one military, 
the other racial. To the Nazis, both wars were necessary for their ultimate 
aim—to develop a new world order. But the scale, scope, and intensity of 
these two wars differed on the eastern and western fronts because of the 


3 


different populations in the two areas. For example, while the Nazis killed 
75,000 French Jews, implementation of their racial policies led to the death of 
up to 3 million Polish Jews and close to 3 million Polish Christians. To better 
understand this difference, we must first recognize the racial concepts and 
beliefs that were at the core of nazism. 3 

As an ideology, nazism drew on the mystical antimodernism of the German 
Volkish movement, various 19th-century anthropological ideas, and their more 
modern pseudoscientific reformulation in a “racial hygiene,” or eugenics, move¬ 
ment, which developed in Germany between the 1890s and 1920s. Influenced 
by these sources, the Nazis asserted a racial basis for all human worth and 
achievement. They believed that the Aryan, or Germanic, people were a vari¬ 
ety of racial elements, among which the Nordic race was the superior, and 
that of the world’s peoples, the Aryans were preeminent and responsible for 
the developments that had created the dominating European civilization of the 
period. 4 

Echoing earlier racists, they claimed that over generations, Aryan “blood” 
was being adulterated through intermarriage with inferior races. “Blood” was a 
contemporary reference to racial heritage, and prior to the mid-20th century, 
people commonly believed that race determined a great range of human char¬ 
acteristics ranging from the soul, or Kultur, to intelligence and creativity. The 
Nazis, as did other extreme racists, held that such human differences applied 
to entire groups en masse and were immutable. Nazi racial theory conse¬ 
quently postulated that biological “degeneration” was inevitable from racial 
mixture, weakening the very foundation of Western civilization and threatening 
the disappearance of the “culture-creating” Aryans. The Nazis saw their mis¬ 
sion as bringing the racial question to the forefront of national life and creating 
a world empire dominated by Nordic Germans. 5 

But who were the “inferior races”? Given the ethnic, linguistic, and histori¬ 
cal complexity of the world, Nazi racial theorists were forced to engage in a 
pseudoscientific, and ultimately subjective, effort to identify and rank human 
groups into a racial hierarchy. Not surprisingly, Germanic people were ranked 
at the top. Though not fully equal to Germans, other western Europeans were 
seen as belonging to superior races and were ranked on the basis of their 
geographical and historical affinity to the Germans. Among westerners, north¬ 
ern Europeans were in general considered to be superior to southern 
Europeans. Substantially inferior to these groups, supposedly, were all peoples 
classified as Asiatic (Oriental), and lower still were those classified as African 
(Negro). 

The Slavic peoples of eastern Europe (e.g., Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, 
Czechs, Slovaks, and Serbs) were seen as adulterated, mixed races, with a 
large infusion of Mongoloid "blood,” therefore neither fully European nor fully 
Asian. Gypsies and Jews were considered entirely separate, alien races; Jews 
were seen as an amalgam of Oriental and Negro “blood.” With these charac- 


4 



Adolph Hitler, Rudolph Hess, Vik¬ 
tor Lutze, and Heinrich Himmler 
attended the 1934 Reich Party 
Day in Niirnberg. Within a decade 
Nazi racism resulted in the death 
of 14 million-16 million “sub¬ 
human" Europeans. 


terizations, Slavs, Gypsies, and Jews were held to be so inferior to Aryans as 
to be less than fully human. As a result, in the Nazi racial hierarchy, the Slavic 
people ranked below western Europeans, and the Gypsies, below Slavs. The 
Jews, defined as the most racially threatening group, were ranked on the low¬ 
est level. Hitler saw the Jews as a culture-destroying race, the diametric 
opposite of the Nordic race. Such definitions and beliefs led Nazi “scientists” 
to affirm that the Jews and other mixed races showed the biological weak¬ 
ness of race mixture. The Nazis claimed that mixed races were more 
susceptible to various diseases and had shorter lifespans because their 
"hybrid” biology caused various bodily organs to mature and degenerate at 
different rates. This finding was in contrast to the perceived synchronized 
physiology of groups who were defined as having a consistent racial heredity. 6 

Once in power in Germany, the Nazis began to act upon these racial ideas 
through two broad policies: They took steps to foster what they saw as posi¬ 
tive eugenic selection for the German people by the elimination of genetically 
weak or defective Aryans, and they took various steps to protect Aryans 
from contamination by "inferior races,” ultimately resulting in policies of 
eugenic extermination of those so defined. 


5 



In the Hadamar Insane Asylum 
cemetery, up to 44 victims of Nazi 
racial “health” measures were 
buried in each grave. The sheer 
numbers suggest one reason why 
the Nazis developed the cremato¬ 
rium to dispose of their victims. 



Beginning in 1933, the Nazis passed a series of laws aimed at depriving 
Jews and Gypsies of such rights as German citizenship and freedom to marry. 
The extent to which these measures were motivated by racial ideas is partly 
suggested by the fact that the German Jews were a small minority of about 
500,000 in a nation of 67 million. Other laws designed to segregate and ulti¬ 
mately remove Jews and Gypsies from German civil, economic, and cultural 
life were enacted up to World War II (p. 22), when a new phase of the racial 
war began. To restrict Aryans seen as inferior, such as the physically and 
mentally disabled, the Reichstag passed the Law to Prevent Offspring with 
Hereditary Defects (1933) and the Law for Marriage Health (1935). 7 

In implementing these last two laws between 1934 and 1945, Nazi public 
health officials sterilized an estimated 360,000 individuals-mulatto, retarded, 
criminal, alcoholic, drug-addicted, and mentally ill Germans. Most of these ster¬ 
ilizations were for retardation, and over 25 percent for schizophrenia. More 
than 1 percent of the entire adult German population was sterilized. Nazi and 
other racial hygienists estimated that there might be as many as 500,000 to 
1.2 million genetic defectives in Germany; other “experts” estimated that pos¬ 
sibly as much as 20 percent of the German population was genetically 
defective. After 1937 the number of sterilizations for Germans began to fall 
because the target population in mental hospitals had been depleted, public 
resistance was growing, and preparation for more extreme measures was 
under way. 8 

By late 1939 the Nazis had developed a “euthanasia” program for killing 
and disposing of hereditarily blind, deaf, and deformed Germans as well as the 
mentally ill and retarded. From late 1939 through August 1941, over 70,000 


6 



patients from more than 100 German hospitals were killed. This inhumane 
attempt to alter the biological heredity of Germans was consistent with Nazi 
racial notions. It was officially suspended by Hitler in August 1941 because of 
public protest in Germany, but in fact, systematic mass murder of the handi¬ 
capped continued secretly, and the killing of children never stopped. More 
victims of this program died after August 1941 than before, either through 
lethal injection or starvation. It was as part of this program at mental institu¬ 
tions that the gas chamber and crematorium were developed. The technology 
and personnel were later employed in the death camps (p. 26). 9 

Hitler and the Nazi leadership saw the war as an opportunity to expand 
and intensify the racial war as German armies conquered large numbers of 
Europeans defined as subhuman, the great majority of whom lived in eastern 
Europe. In the newly conquered lands, for those of imputed racial inferiority 
who were allowed to live for a time, the Nazis instituted a rigid segregation 
system as part of the “New Order.” For example, after Nazi occupation of 
Poland and Ukraine, non-Germans were required to sit in the back of trolleys. 
Shops and restaurants in Kiev posted bold signs stating "Ukrainians Not 
Admitted, Germans Only”; in Poznan, offices and hotels posted “Entrance is 
forbidden to Poles, Jews, and dogs.” In the absence of skin color as a visual 
sign of racial status, Jews, inmates of concentration camps, and slave labor¬ 
ers were forced to wear a clearly visible identification emblem. For example, 
Jews were required to wear a yellow Star of David. The 1.5 million Polish and 
2 million Ukrainian slave laborers in Germany were required to wear a square 
emblem with the inscription “OST,” standing for Ostarbeiter (eastern laborer). 
The Nazi compulsion to create a social order based on race even went as far 
as insisting that inmates of Sachsenhausen concentration camp line up to 
reflect the racial hierarchy: northern Europeans first, then Frenchmen fol¬ 
lowed by Poles and Ukrainians, then Gypsies, and Jews last. 10 

The week before the invasion of Poland, Hitler had met with his command¬ 
ing generals and made both his racial and military war aims clear. He said: 

I have given the order and will have every one shot, who utters 
even one word of criticism that the aim of the war is not to attain 
certain lines, but consists in the physical destruction of the oppo¬ 
nent. Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my 
"Death’s Head Units” with the order to kill without mercy all men, 
women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way 
will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays 
of the extermination of the Armenians? . . . Poland will be depopu¬ 
lated and colonized with Germans. ... in Russia will happen just 
what I have practiced with Poland. 11 

This statement underscores the direct and fatal connection between Nazi 
racial beliefs and the idea of Lebensraum (living space for a nation). In 1924 


7 


in Mein Kampf , Hitler had stated that his ultimate aim was the establishment 
of a new German empire, the Third Reich, which he envisioned as a contigu¬ 
ous, land-based state including all 80 million Germans and reaching from the 
Atlantic to the Urals. 

The loss of Germany’s overseas colonies in World War I influenced Hitler’s 
view that German needs dictated expansion to the east. But more fundamen¬ 
tally the idea expressed an old belief common in Western thought: that to 
prosper and grow, a nation had to acquire more land and resources. Histori¬ 
cally, many nations had sought to expand through conquest or colonization to 
provide for their growing populations. But with the advent of industrialization 
and increasing commerce, rural agricultural life as the norm was progressively 
superseded in the urbanizing West, particularly in the 20th century. This trend 
was strongly opposed by the Nazis, who warmly embraced both the German 
peasant and rural ideal. In the face of a large population, highly developed 
industrialization, and increasing urbanization, the Nazi Party wanted to provide 
more Germans with the opportunity for farming. In one plan, for example, they 
aimed to resettle 8 million Germans in the east over a 30-year period. Rather 
than advocate limitation of population, redistribution of land within Germany, 
expansion of foreign trade, or domestic reform to make the new urban and 
industrial lifestyles more acceptable, the Nazis chose an aggressive imperial¬ 
ism as their program. Their racism and planned aggrandizement in the east 
permitted them to avoid difficult political decisions at home. Racism and 
Hitler’s negative views on the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian empire led the 
Nazis to violently reject the possibility of coexistence with or assimilation of 
non-Aryans. 12 

Hitler rejected the possibility of transplanting Germanic colonists north, 
south, or west because these areas were densely populated by racially 
acceptable Europeans and the land in Scandinavia was too mountainous. Only 
eastward expansion into the vast agricultural plain that begins in central 
Poland and stretches through fertile Ukraine into European Russia would pro¬ 
vide acceptable Nazi Lebensraum. 13 

The main obstacle to this expansion was that the lands to the east were 
as heavily settled as those in western Europe. Central and eastern Europe 
was the home of over 200 million Slavs, a majority of Europe’s Gypsies, and 
75 percent of Europe’s 8.5 million Jews. The fate of eastern Europe’s inhabi¬ 
tants involved neither moral nor legal considerations because Nazi racial 
classification placed most of these people in subhuman alien outgroups 
( Untermenschen ), which did not receive the same consideration as Aryans. In 
fact these groups’ numbers, fertility, and supposed racial inferiority were seen 
as a direct threat to Aryans. The Nazis saw survival of nations or races as a 
brutal social Darwinian struggle in which only “the fittest” survived or had a 
right to survive. Under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the Schutzstaffel 
(the SS) acquired responsibility for racial policies, resettlement, and coloniza- 


8 




These members of a labor service 
camp near Darmstadt worked on 
65 farms in the community and 
embodied the Nazis' idealized 
vision of rural agricultural life. 


tion of the east and pursued its mission with ruthless consequences (pp. 27- 
29, 32-34, 36-37). 

To the Nazis the problem was purely practical: how to dominate nearly 
210 million people and ultimately displace them from their land, homes, and 
possessions for the benefit of Germans. Four strategies were developed for 
this phase of the racial war: 1) mass extermination, 2) mass expropriation and 
resettlement, 3) identification of good Aryan “blood" for “regermanization,” 
and 4) mass slavery. 

The policy of mass extermination operated through both direct and indi¬ 
rect means. Deporting Jews and others to death camps like Birkenau (pp. 27 
and 35) or sending SS mobile units to shoot or gas their victims (pp. 28 and 
37) are the most well known elements of this strategy. Using people for exper¬ 
iments resulting in death (p. 33) derived from the same general ideas and 
objectives. Up to 2.7 million Jews died in the 6 Nazi death camps and over 
1.3 million from open-air shootings. About a million Slavs also died in the death 
camps. 


9 







Captured during the campaign of 
1941, hundreds of thousands of 
Soviet prisoners of war were col¬ 
lected in camps and were left to 
freeze and starve to death in the 
open during the bitter winter that 
followed. 


Extermination through indirect means is not as well known. The most wide¬ 
spread indirect means was deliberate and planned starvation. This policy was 
applied to Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, and the urban populations in Poland 
and Ukraine. In the General Government, a German colony remaining after the 
annexation of western Poland, the official food ration in Warsaw in 1941 was 
over 2,600 calories for a German, 699 for a Pole, and 184 for a Jew. In the 
summer of 1941 the daily ration given to Russian POWs was “one ounce of 
millet and three ounces of bread, no meat” or “three ounces of millet, no 
bread,” one-quarter of the food necessary for survival. During that year Her¬ 
mann Goring told the Italian Foreign Minister, "In the camp for Russian 
prisoners they have begun to eat each other. . . . This year between twenty 
and thirty million persons will die of hunger in Russia. Perhaps it is well that it 
should be so, for certain nations must be decimated.” The Nazis also deliber¬ 
ately withheld medical services and vaccinations in occupied Polish and Soviet 
territory. And in their horrifying experimental medical program, they sought to 
develop an inexpensive and quick method of sterilizing Russians, Poles, Gyp¬ 
sies, and Jews: at Auschwitz, sterilizing thousands of Jewish and Gypsy 
women by uterine injections, and at Ravensbruck, sterilizing young Polish 
women with surgery, x rays, and uterine chemotherapy. 14 

A second strategy of the racial war, mass expropriation and resettlement, 
involved driving a large percentage of the undesirable populations eastward 
before an advancing line of Aryan colonists, who simply took over the empty 
homes, farms, and businesses. For example, by 1943 in western Poland, over 
700,000 farms totaling 21 million acres had been seized and given to German 
settlers. About 1.5 million Polish citizens (including 300,000 Polish Jews) were 
simply expelled from this area when it was annexed to Germany, forced into 
unheated cattle cars without food or water, and deported east to the General 
Government. Nazi racial planners considered one to one the ideal ratio for 



10 


Germans and non-Aryans in a colonization area. Thus some of the original 
inhabitants were kept behind as slave labor for the new masters; other 
“aliens” were to be killed or deported. Documents introduced during the 
Nurnberg trials recorded the SS’s postwar plans to "resettle” some 50 million 
remaining Slavs to western Siberia: 85 percent of Poles, 75 percent of 
Belorussians, 65 percent of Ukrainians, and 50 percent of Czechs. 15 

In various 1943 speeches, Heinrich Himmler declared that colonization 
would be the work of the future for the SS. He predicted that German farm¬ 
ers and the SS would move the frontier over 300 miles east every 20 years, 
continually fighting the remnants of “the Russian enemy, this people number¬ 
ing two hundred million Russians, [who must] be destroyed on the battlefield 
and person by person.” Following the extermination of 3.8 million Jews in 1941 
and 1942, Himmler may have been anticipating completion of the Nazis’ final 
solution to the Jewish question and considering other present and future 
enemies. In any case, in 1943 he had also begun to speak of the task for 
future generations, which he foresaw as a whole new phase of the racial 
war-”battles of destiny against Asia.” 16 It is chilling to consider that if the 
Nazis had not been defeated, and if Himmler’s rates were accurate, the 
“genetic cleansing” associated with Nazi colonization and the drive to the east 
would still be continuing today. 

Such views on annihilation of subhumans represented one conclusion 
drawn from Nazi racial assumptions. The policy of regermanization repre¬ 
sented a seemingly contradictory conclusion from the same assumptions. It 
was implemented by units of the SS that searched the conquered populations 
for any trace of Aryan “blood” that might exist either in descendants of any 
Germans who had settled in the east since Roman times or that might be 
worth saving among the Slavs. Himmler publicly stated that “For us the end of 
this war will mean an open road to the East, the creation of the Germanic 
Reich, . . . the fetching home of 30 million human beings of our blood, so that 
still during our lifetime we shall be a people of 120 million Germanic souls. This 
means that we shall be the sole decisive power in Europe.” 17 

Nazi pseudoscientific race surveys were largely based on observation of 
external appearance by an examiner who might have had 6 weeks’ “training.” 
Admitting that Slavs had originally derived from the same Indo-European 
races as the Germans, Nazi racial theorists argued that invasions from Asia 
(e.g., Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, the Ottoman Turks) had contaminated 
Slavic biology. Such speculation led to two contradictory approaches to con¬ 
quered Slavs. On one hand, Nazis feared the larger Slavic population, its birth 
rate, and its potential for resistance, the latter supposedly derived from resid¬ 
ual Nordic “blood.” These beliefs led to policies of terror, extermination, 
enslavement, and expulsion for “inferior” non-Aryans in eastern Europe—a tar¬ 
get population of about 180 million Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs. 

On the other hand, Nazis like Himmler were very conscious of the limited 


11 


Gaunt, starved, and only half-alive, 
these three prisoners, two of whom 
still wear their identifying striped 
prison garb, bear evidence to the 
horror of life in the Dachau con¬ 
centration camp. 



population of the Germanic races compared to their present and future ene¬ 
mies. Himmler’s concern was that when the inevitable battle against Asia 
broke out and "the mass of humanity of 1 to 1.5 billion lines up against us, the 
Germanic people, numbering, I hope, 250 to 300 million, and the other Euro¬ 
pean peoples, making a total of 600-700 million—(and with an outpost area 
stretching as far as the Urals, or [in] a hundred years, beyond the Urals)— 
must stand the test in its vital struggle against Asia.” Consequently, the SS 
developed policies to promote an increase in the fertility of Aryans and to 
"regermanize” eastern Germans and Slavs whom they determined had enough 
Aryan “blood” to save for the Reich. For “regermanization” the SS preferred 
women between the ages of 16 and 20 and children between 6 and 10 (sim¬ 
ply taken from their parents). 18 

The fourth strategy for the remaking of Europe was to enslave those con¬ 
sidered racially inferior but useful for their labor. In Mein Kampf Hitler had 
asserted that the Aryans had enslaved “lower human types” even before tam¬ 
ing animals and that in the absence of machines and technology, slavery had 
made the higher culture of (Aryan) humanity possible. 19 Once the war began, 
the Nazis instituted a brutal exploitation of captive populations for their labor. 
By the end of the war, 7.5 million slave laborers were at work in Germany, 
about a fourth of the total German labor force, and thousands of others 
worked in hundreds of labor, concentration, and death camps throughout 
Nazi-controlled territory. Major German firms such as I. G. Farben established 
factories near concentration camps like Auschwitz (p. 35) to employ slave 
labor. In these camps the death rate was notably high (p. 30) because the 
food rations and working conditions were deliberately calculated to bring 
death in 3 to 6 months; as a matter of racial policy these lives were seen as 
valueless and expendable. Such conditions reflected a policy the Nazis imple¬ 
mented early in the war, "extermination through labor.” 20 

After December 1941, with the increasing prospect of a long war, ele¬ 
ments within the Nazi leadership began to think of an expanded war economy 
run by slave labor to produce everything from bricks to armaments. The con¬ 
flict between those Nazis who viewed slave labor as unwanted life and those 
who considered it a valuable economic resource was never resolved. For 
example, in Mauthausen, with an average prison population of over 21,000 in 
1943, 40 percent of the camp inmates died due to inadequate food, clothing, 
and equipment. Even though efforts were made to reduce the rate of death 
in such forced labor camps by simple “reforms” like allowing inmates to wear 
coats in winter, the death rates of working prisoners began to climb in 1944 
and skyrocketed in 1945. Often when the Allies’ advance came too close to 
various labor camps, the guards simply killed the prisoners; for example, at 
Landsberg Camp 4, guards locked Jewish prisoners in their barracks and 
burned the buildings to the ground, leaving only naked charred human 
remains, frozen in surreal shapes of death. 21 


12 



Relieved to be free, these prisoners 
at Mauthausen, a slave labor camp 
in Nazi-occupied Austria, survived 
death rates of 40 percent a year, 
the result of deliberately inade¬ 
quate food, clothing, and shelter. 


How the strategies of the racial war affected different groups depended 
significantly on where a group stood in the racial hierarchy; thereafter, its size, 
the course of the military war, and conflicting ideas among the Nazis influ¬ 
enced implementation of racial policies. The Nazis’ most extreme action, the 
decision to implement a final solution to a racial problem, was first applied to 
those at the extremes of the racial hierarchy. The first people targeted for 
immediate extermination were the “valueless lives" among the Aryans. Hitler 
and his Chancellery gave the order in 1939 to exterminate the mentally ill and 
handicapped (p. 26). 

At the other end of the hierarchy, Nazi ideology defined the Jews as the 
most racially threatening group. According to Nazi propaganda and belief, 
Jews were the main cause and symbol of most, if not all, of what was wrong 
with the contemporary world. The ills of both capitalism and communism were 
attributed to the perceived Jewish threat. Consequently, with the invasion of 
Poland, home to over one-third of Europe’s Jews, the Nazis proceeded to 
implement policies aimed at the complete extermination of European Jews (pp. 
24 and 29). The Nazis’ commitment to this aspect of the racial war was so 
obsessive that at times it overrode military necessities. For example, the Nazis 
diverted trains desperately needed to supply troops in order to transport 
Jews to the death camps. 22 


13 








While Hitler bears overall responsibility, different senior Nazi officials imple¬ 
mented the decisions to exterminate various groups at different times. 
Himmler was responsible for the early killings of Jews; then, under Hermann 
Goring’s authorization, Reinhard Heydrich played a major role from the inva¬ 
sion of Russia in 1941 through the Wannsee conference in 1942 (p. 29) until 
his death later that year. By the end of 1942, the evidence suggests that 
Himmler made the decision to implement a final solution for the Gypsies, 
ordering them to be delivered to Auschwitz. 23 

Nazi treatment of Soviet POWs demonstrates that the decision to commit 
people to immediate extermination or to slave labor could depend on such a 
factor as the course of the fighting (p. 31). In the fall of 1941, following a 
series of major German victories, large shipments of Soviet POWs were sent 
to Auschwitz (p. 35) and other camps to be worked to death or exterminated. 
During the bitter winter of 1941-42, hundreds of thousands of Soviet POWs 
held in Ukraine and Belorussia were deliberately starved to death without 
shelter. But by 1942-43, the Nazis had failed to take Moscow, had been 
forced to withdraw from the Caucasus, and had lost an army at Stalingrad. 
The advancing Soviet armies had retaken Rostov, Kharkov, and Smolensk. 
With the decreasing prospect of victory, even Himmler regretted the earlier 
loss of potential POW labor and explicitly directed his SS generals to send 
Soviet POWs to slave labor rather than to immediate extermination. 24 

The sheer numbers of the Slavic peoples, in contrast to European Jewish 
and Gypsy populations and the Germans themselves, also necessitated differ¬ 
ent applications of Nazi strategies in the racial war. The first Slavs the Nazis 
designated for immediate and direct extermination were those who could pro¬ 
vide leadership for resistance to Nazi rule: priests, public officials, political 
leaders, professors, teachers, lawyers, worker and peasant leaders, members 
of the Communist Party, merchants, army officers, and soldiers (p. 31). Con¬ 
sequently, the Einsatzgruppen, the SS death squads operating behind the 
front lines in captured territory, focused on shooting or gassing these specific 
categories among Slavs while seeking out all Jews for direct extermination 
(p. 32). 25 Conversely, the indirect policies of extermination—such as planned 
starvation or withholding of vaccinations—were policies designed to kill large 
numbers indiscriminately. 

The officially sanctioned and deliberately planned Nazi extermination of 
civilians and prisoners of war resulted in a staggering loss of life (p. 36). Esti¬ 
mated deaths are 5 million to 6 million Jews, 250,000 to 500,000 Gypsies, and 
9 million to 10 million Slavs. Not surprisingly, the estimated deaths inversely 
reflect the rankings of the Nazi racial hierarchy: the lower on the hierarchy, 
the higher the percentage of dead. These numbers represent about 65 to 70 
percent of European Jewry, over 30 percent of European Gypsies, and 11 to 
15 percent of Polish, Belorussian, and Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. 

About half of the Jews killed died in death camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, 


14 



Slave laborers produced V-bombs 
at the Nordhausen camp. On the 
approach of the Allied armies, 
guards at many such camps killed 
the inmates. The U.S. First Army 
liberated Nordhausen in April 
1945 and ordered German citizens 
to bury the dead. 



Belzec, and Treblinka (pp. 27 and 35). More than 1.3 million died in open-air 
shootings, and hundreds of thousands perished from deliberate privation such 
as starvation. At least 1 million Slavs are estimated to have died in the death 
camps, but most of the 9 million to 10 million killed were shot or hanged in 
thousands of mass and individual executions or were deliberately starved or 
worked to death (pp. 30 and 31). The total deaths in the Nazis’ racial war are 
estimated at 14 million to 16 million, or possibly 1 in 2 deaths of the 30 million 
Europeans estimated to have died during World War II. 26 


15 



In 1978, following the broadcast of the television miniseries Holocaust, 
the National Archives prepared an exhibition entitled “Holocaust: The Docu¬ 
mentary Evidence.” Robert Wolfe, currently Assistant Director, Center for 
Captured German and Related Records, selected the items in the exhibit from 
the captured German records and the World War II war crimes records in the 
Archives. In 1990 he revised this material for a poster series of the same title. 
In commemoration of the anniversary of U.S. participation in World War II, the 
National Archives Office of Public Programs is making the material available 
as a booklet. 

The following documents concentrate on the Jewish victims of the racial 
war as a case study of the most extensive genocidal victimization from Nazi 
racial policies. Inevitably the materials also include reference to other Nazi vic¬ 
tims. The tragedy of the Holocaust provides a searing insight into the “New 
Order” the Nazis might have built had the war turned out differently. Himmler 
tells us that what happened was just the beginning. This introduction has 
sought to outline the fundamental role racism played in this tragedy and to 
place the selected documents in their immediate historical and ideological 
context. The reader is encouraged to study the illustrations and documents 
that follow as striking evidence of the aims and policies of a Nazi totalitarian 
dictatorship that actively sought to remake humanity in its own image. 


16 


Notes 


1. With World War II in mind, the United Nations 
Genocide Convention (1951) outlaws all acts car¬ 
ried out with “a specific intent to destroy, in whole 
or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial or 
religious group.” 

2. Encyclopedia Britannica (Macropedia), 15th ed., 
s.v. “International Relations. World War II: Cost of 
the War”; The Historical Encyclopedia of World War 
II (1989), s.v. “Prisoners of War.” 

3. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews, 
rev. ed. (1985), p. 1220. 

4. George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: 
Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (1964); 
Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the 
Nazis (1988); George W. Stocking, Jr., Race, Cul¬ 
ture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of 
Anthropology (1968). 

5. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim 
(1943), pp. 214, 248-249, 285-296, 300, 
327-328, 389-390, 654-655; Paul Weindling, 
Health, Race and German Politics Between 
National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 
(1989), pp. 490-492, 531. 

6. Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 114, 197; Joseph 
Tenenbaum, Race and Reich: The Story of an 
Epoch (1956), pp. xiii-xv; Mosse, Crisis of German 
Ideology, pp. 88-107; Bohdan Wytwycky, The 
Other Holocaust: Many Circles of Hell (1980), 

pp. 25-29. 

7. Examples of Nazi legislation that included anti- 
Jewish measures are the Law for the Restitution of 
the Professional Civil Service (April 1933), the Law 
for the Revocation of German Citizenship (July 
1933), and the Reich Citizenship Law (September 
1935), augmented by the Law for the Protection of 
German Blood and Honor (1935). Examples of laws 
used against the Gypsies are the Denaturalization 
Law (July 1933), applied to foreign and stateless 
Gypsies inside Germany; the Law for Prevention of 
Offspring with Hereditary Defects (1933) and the 
Laws Against Crime (1937), both of which included 
Gypsies under the racial category of “asocials”; and 
a law entitled "Fight against the Gypsy Menace” 
(1938). From 1933 a national police commission 
decided to require mandatory registration and fin¬ 
gerprinting of all Gypsies older than 6. The Law for 
Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Defects was 
specifically directed against the physically handi¬ 
capped and mentally ill, and its effect was 
strengthened by the Law for Marriage Health (Octo¬ 


ber 1935). Memorandum from Dr. Sybil Milton, 
United States Holocaust Council, February 1992, 
in possession of author; Wytwycky, The Other 
Holocaust, pp. 30-31. 

8. Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 95-117, 207-208; 
Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 

p. 533. 

9. Milton memorandum; Robert Jay Litton, “Steril¬ 
ization and Euthanasia," in A Mosaic of Victims: 
Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis, 
ed. Michael Berenbaum (1990), pp. 222-228; 
Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 177-222; Weindling, 
Health, Race and German Politics, pp. 186-187. 

10. Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, The Den¬ 
sity of Europe’s Gypsies (1972), pp. 174-175; 
Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 181-182; Wytwycky, 
The Other Holocaust, pp. 28, 44-45, 81, 91-92. 

11. Office of the U.S. Chief Counsel for the Prose¬ 
cution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and 
Aggression (1946), 7: 752-754 (translation of 
Document L-3). 

12. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 131-156. 

13. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 641-667. Ukraine is 
approximately 200,000 square miles of some of 
the richest land in Europe. 

14. Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, rev. 
ed. (1961), pp. 578-579, 593-594; Konnilyn 
Feig, “Non-Jewish Victims in the Concentration 
Camps,” in A Mosaic of Victims, p. 173; Goring 
statement as recorded in Count Ciano’s diary, cited 
in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third 
Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1960), p. 854n; 
Ihor Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern 
Europe: A Study of Lebensraum Policies (1961), 
pp. 141-150; Christian Streit, “The Fate of the 
Soviet Prisoners of War,” in A Mosaic of Victims, 
pp. 142-149. Kamenetsky has made extensive use 
of the documents from the Nurnberg hearings. 

15. Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans, pp. 41, 

52-81, 175-176, 234 n. 145 on Document 
NG-2325; R. L. Koehl, RKFDV: German Resettle¬ 
ment and Population Policy (1957); Shirer, Third 
Reich, p. 944; Wytwycky, The Other Holocaust, 
pp. 40, 44. Whether or not "resettling” was a Nazi 
euphemism like “transporting Jews to the East,” 
the percentage objectives indicate general 

Nazi aims. 

16. Office of U.S. Chief Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy 
and Aggression, 4: 570-572; quotation from April 
1943 speech at Kharkov, Ukraine, 4: 573-574. 


17 


See also pp. 577-578, where Russia is viewed as 
racially Asiatic: “We know that this conflict with the 
advancing pressure from Asia, with 200 million 
Russians, is necessary.” 

17. Office of U.S. Chief Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy 
and Aggression, 1: 1030-1031. 

18. Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans, pp. 21, 55, 
62-65, 88-101; Trials of War Criminals Before the 
Nuremberg Military Tribunals Under Council Law 
No. 10 (1949), 4: 989-1053. Because there had 
been a fifth-century Gothic settlement in Ukraine, 
Hitler was willing to accept certain Ukrainian 
women between the ages of 15 and 35 as candi¬ 
dates for regermanization. Out of a potential 

10.7 million prospects for regermanization in the 
provinces annexed in western Poland, of the 6 mil¬ 
lion Poles remaining after previous expulsions, only 
3 percent were found qualified in June 1942. Cf. 
Heinrich Himmler, Untermensch (1942). 

19. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 294-295. 

20. Peter Black, "Forced Labor in the Concentra¬ 
tion Camps, 1942-1944,” and Edward Homze, 
“Nazi Germany’s Forced Labor Program,” in A 
Mosaic of Victims, pp. 37-63; Office of U.S Chief 
Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 6: 
1111-1115 (Documents D-272, D-274, and 
D-277); Wytwycky, The Other Holocaust, pp. 49, 
76-81. 

21. Black, “Forced Labor," in A Mosaic of Victims, 
pp. 46-51, 56-57. For examples of photographs 
documenting the murder of camp inmates before 
liberation by advancing Allied troops, see Records 
of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Record 
Group 111 (111-SC-203356-S, 11 l-SC-231802, 


and 11 l-SC-266485) and Records of the Office of 
War Information, Record Group 208 (208-YE-1B- 
9), National Archives, Washington, DC (hereinafter, 
records of the National Archives will be cited as 
RG_, NA). 

22. Hitler, Mein Kampf, passim; Mosse, Crisis of 
German Ideology, pp. 126-145, 294-311; 
Wytwycky, The Other Holocaust, pp. 19. Cf. C. 

Vann Woodward, Tom Watson.- Agrarian Rebel 
(1969), pp. 431-450. 

23. Milton memorandum; Wytwycky, The Other 
Holocaust, p. 33. 

24. Bullock, Hitler(1961), pp. 621-633; Office of 
U.S. Chief Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggres¬ 
sion, 4: 558; Wytwycky, The Other Holocaust, 

pp. 71-76. 

25. See Reinhard Heydrich’s order of July 17, 

1941: Regulations for the Commandos of the Secu¬ 
rity Police and Service to be detailed to Stalags, 
National Archives Collection of Foreign Records 
Seized, RG 242, NA; Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi 
Plans, pp. 163-165 (I.M.T. Document No-3155). 

26. H i I berg, Destruction of European Jews, pp. 
1219-1220; Wytwycky, The Other Holocaust, pp. 
19, 28, 45, 81, 91-92. The release of the former 
Soviet Union’s archives may change these esti¬ 
mates considerably. Gen. Dmitri A. Volkogonov, who 
is responsible for opening these documents for 
research, stated at the National Archives of the 
United States on June 15, 1992, that he has 
records showing 27 million Soviet people perished 
during World War II. See Prologue, Quarterly of the 
National Archives, 24 (Winter 1992): 357. 


18 


Facsimiles 



During the 12 years of the Third Reich 
— between Nazi assumption of power 
in Germany on January 30, 1933, and 
unconditional surrender on V-E Day, 
May 8, 1945 — the Jews of Germany 
and Nazi-occupied Europe were sub¬ 
jected to discrimination, loss of citizen¬ 
ship, loss of property, exile, and near 
extermination. The genocidal plan, 
Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish 
question, ” was classified ultrasecret. 
Assembling and transporting Jews 
from all corners of Europe to the exter¬ 
mination sites in occupied Poland, 
however, was a complex operation and 
generated much coordinating paper¬ 
work among the SS and other Nazi 
agencies. A large number of these rec¬ 
ords were captured by the Allies and 
used as evidence in war crimes trials 
held since 1945 at Nurnberg and else¬ 
where. The National Archives and Rec¬ 
ords Administration has preserved for 
posterity this authentic, contemporary 
documentation of the Holocaust. 


On November 9, 1938, Nazi-instigated 
and -condoned anti-Semitic violence 
broke out throughout Germany. On 
November 11, Reinhard Heydrich, 
Chief of Security Police, reported to 
Hermann Goring: 

In numerous cities looting of Jewish 
shops and businesses has occurred. 

. . . The reported figures: 815 shops 
destroyed, 29 department stores set 
afire or otherwise destroyed, 1 71 
dwellings set on fire or destroyed, give 
. . . only part of the real destruction. . . . 
[and] may exceed that many times 
over. Of synagogues, 191 were set 
afire, a further 76 were fully demol¬ 
ished. Further, 11 community centers, 
cemetery chapels and such were set 
afire and 3 others fully destroyed. 
Arrested were around 20,000 Jews, 
further 7 Aryans and 3 foreigners. . . . 
reported were 36 deaths, as well as 
36 critically injured. The dead and/or 
injured are Jews. 

Because of the enormous amount 
of broken window glass in the streets, 
the public dubbed this pogrom 
Reichkristallnacht (Reich crystal 
night). 


20 


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Report, Aktion gegen die Juden (Action Against Jews), 
Reich Security Chief Reinhard Heydrich to General Field 
Marshal Hermann Goring, November 11, 1938. Record 
Group (RG) 238, National Archives Collection of World 
War II War Crimes Records, Niirnberg Document 
3058 PS, Exhibit USA 508. 


21 












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Subject: Jewish Question in Occupied 
Territory. . . . planned measures to 
be held strictly secret. It is to be 
differentiated between . . . the Endziel 
(end goal) . . . and the phases of [its] 
fulfillment. . . (which will be carried out 
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operation commands of the Security Police, September 
21, 1939. Carbon copy. RG 238, Nurnberg Document 
3363 PS. 



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22 















Nurnberg Nazi Party rally, 
September 4-10, 1934. 



RG 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records 
Seized, 1941- , HB 8199a 315. 

■ Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolph Hess, and 
Reinhard Heydrich (directly behind Hess). 


23 


ADOwF HITLER 


Reichsleiter B o u h 1 e r und 
Dr. med. Brandt 

sind unter Verantvrortung beauftragt, die Defup - 
nisee naaentlich zu bestiiaender irzte so zu er - 
.veitern, d&ss nach menschlichem Brmensen unheiltar 
Krank^n bei kriti^chster Beurteilun- ihres Krank - 
heitszustandes der Gnadentod rewihrt *erden knnn. 


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t ;i V Bezugnehmend suf die von dem 

?),.. | t l fi|^r.fqknirfereny. J uerrn Cardinal Dr.Bert?eA ; ein^ereiohte Denk- 

^schrif t vom 16.^ili (sub 37. ^eit® 6/7) halte icb micb verpflioh- 

betx. Vernfebtung aogenannten "lebensunwerten Lebens" das 
‘' ————— —- 

big ©ride als konk retail lust rat ion zu unterbreiten. 

a^8 km von Limburg entfernt ist in dem St&dtohen Kadamar 
einer An»4be unmittelbar uber dem Stfidtoben eine Anstalt, die 
frtiber ^jgfi^fl^iedenen Zwecken, zuletzt als Heil=und l^legeoAiwrtait 
gedieot hat, umgebaut bzw. eingeriohtet worden als eine Stbtte, s- 
in der naoh allgeaeiner Ueberzeugung obengenannte Suthfhasi© 9eit 
Mona ten -etwa seit tebruar 1M1- planmbBig volleogen wird. Ueber 

i +* 

den Regierungsbezirk Wiesbaden hinaus wird die Tatsaohe bekannt, 

& well Sterbeurtunden von einem Standesamt ^Sjid^mar-Mbnohberg in die 

betreifenden Heiraatgemeinden gesendt werden. %|rnohberg wird djjfese 
Anstalt genanrrt, well sie bis zur Sakularisation 1803 eiu Francis- 
kanerkloster war. ) 

k Oefter in der ffooke kommen Autobusse mit einer grbfleren Anzahl 

soloher Opfer in Had&mar an. Scbulkinder der Umgegend kennen didse 
Wagen und reden: "Da kommt wieder die Kordkiste." Kacb der Ankunft 
soloher Wag©n beobaobten dann die Hadatnarer Btirger den aus dem 
Sohlot aufsteigenden Rauoh und sind von dem stttndigen Oedanken an 
die armen Opfer ersohlittert, eumal wenn sie je naob der Windrioh- 
tung durch die widerliohen Diifte belfistigt werden. 

^ a,- kJ r. (L+w jj *&,#.-■ *_/ ^ 

- -£/*' Ik, ^ 

Jf. j l * 1 : ^ J . i n r> > y a . , / . i ■ a r r • 


i 

r 


In response to complaints from 
German families about the killing of 
their feeble-minded relatives, Minister 
of Justice Franz Gurtner requested an 
authenticated copy of Hitler’s 1939 
order authorizing certain doctors to kill 
persons deemed incurably ill. Gurtner’s 
handwritten note shows that he re¬ 
ceived this photostatic copy on 
August 27, 1940. 


The Bishop of Limburg protested to 
the Minister of Justice the killing of 
inmates at Hadamar asylum because 
Nazi doctrine deemed them “valueless 
lives.’’ Bishop Hilfrich complained that 
even children at play chattered know¬ 
ingly about the smokey chimney and 
sickly smell and that implausible death 
certificates had been received by many 
families of Hadamar inmates. Public 
protest caused Hitler to suspend 
domestic euthanasia of insane and fee¬ 
ble-minded Germans, but the execu¬ 
tion technology and personnel were 
transferred to death camps for Jews 
and Gypsies in Poland and eastern 
Europe. 


Executive order signed by Adolf Hitler, September 1, 
1939. Photostat, 1940. RG 238, Niirnberg Document 
630 PS, Exhibit USA 342. 


Letter, Dr. Anton Hilfrich, Bishop of Limburg, to 
Franz Gurtner, August 31, 1941 (first page only). 

RG 238, Niirnberg Document 615 PS, Exhibit USA 717. 


24 









This invoice of the Deutsche Gesell- 
schaft fur Schadlingsbekampfung — 
DEGESCH — (German Association for 
Pest Control) records the shipment of 
390 canisters of Zyklon B cyanide gas 
to be used for “disinfection and exter¬ 
mination” at the Auschwitz concentra¬ 
tion camp. Originally developed and 
used as an odorous insecticide and 
pesticide, Zyklon B cyanide gas was 
employed in an odorless form in the 
execution chambers in Auschwitz and 
probably Maidanek. The invoice states 
that labels on the 390 canisters bear 
the notice: “Vorsicht, ohne Warnstoff” 
(Beware, no warning odor). The warn¬ 
ing label was intended for the 
protection of the SS executioners who 
handled the cans. 


DEGESCH neue Anechrift; 

DEUTSCHE GESEUSCHAFT FOR DCGEOCH 
SCHADIINGSBEKAMPFUNG M.B.H Friedbe rfl / HeMOn 

FRANKFURT/M. “ 

WEISSFRAUENSTR. 9 / FERNSPRECHER: ORTSRUF 20121 / FERNRUF, 2&S46 / NACHTRUFt 24141 / DRAHTWORT. DEGESCH 
postanschrift droisch mamkpurt/mam. schucsvacm ?*» postschcck «V 4 fiank'uit/m meotAMMC. aui coots 

H«rrn Ober«tur*iftihrer 
Kart Berstein 

(i) B.ni, RECHNUNG 

IeipKigerstraese 31/32 Wo. 


/rr 3- PS 



Frankfurt a. M. den 31. Mai 1944 


5 o 185/, i7 _ j -5 Rieten. enthaltend 3 # 
5 o - 39 o feUchsen V ^oo? 


Wir aandten am 31,^*1 aT> Deeaan mit 
ainem Wahrmaohtfraohtbrief der Heeres- 
Standortvernaltung Dessau an das Kon- 
rentrationelager Auachwite, Abteilung 
Entneaung und Seuohanabwahr, 

Station: Auschwitr. 
ala Prachtgut folganda Sendung: 

H H 0 > B Blausaure 


ohne Reiastof? 


195,- kg Cl 5. 


Brutto: 83?,oo kg 
Tara: 276,25 • 

Netto; 555.75 » 

Die Etikettan tragen dan Varaerk: 
• Voralcht. ohne Wamatoff * 


49374 


975. 


This canister, taken from stock and 
used as an exhibit in the Nurnberg 
I.G. Farben trial, is similar to those 
used to kill Jews, Gypsies, and other 
people in the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas 
chambers. 


Invoice, DEGESCH to SS First Lt. Kurt Gerstein, 

May 31, 1941. RG 238, Nurnberg Document 1553 PS, 
Exhibit RF 350. 


Depleted 1-kilo metal canister of Zyklon B gas. RG 238, 
United States v. Carl Krauch et a!., Exhibit DEGESCH 48. 



25 















A> «> I 




t J 7"C 


An 



"-Obe s turmbannfiihrer A 

in i3 e r 1 i n 
Prinz-Albreciit-Str. 8 






^Die ^berholung der Vagen bei der C-fuppe D und C ist 
beendet. ahrena die a^en der ersten Gerie '&uch bei nicht 
allzu schlechter v7etter''.age eingeoetzt werden konnen, liegen 
die ,7a gen der zweiten Sorie (Saurer) bei Regenv;etter vollk om- 
W men fest. .Venn es z.B. nur eine halbe Gtunde geregnet hat, 

\ Icann der Tagen nicht eingesetzt werden, v/eil er glatt weg- 
rutscht. Benutzbar ist er nur bei ganz trockenem Wetter. Es 
tritt nur die Frage auf, ob man den ‘fagen nur am Grt'e -der 
Execution im otand benutzen kann. Erstens muss der Wagen an 
die sen Ort gebraeht werden, was nur bei guter Wetterlage 
xnoglich ist. Der Ort der Lxekution befindet sich aber moistens 
lo - 1? Ion abseits der Verkehrswege und ist durch seine Lage • 
schon schwer zuganglich, bej feuchtem oder nassen Wetter uber- 
•haupt nicht. Fahrt oder fuhrt man die zu Sxekutierenden an 
die sen Ort, so merken sie so fort was los ist und werden unru- 
h ig, was nach ilbglichkeit vermieden werden soil. 3s bleibt 
nur der eine Ve^ ubrig, sie am S&mmelorte einzuladen und dtnn 
hinaus zi^f ahr e n .p' 

/Die u en der Gruppe D habe ich ale hohnv -.an tarnen 
lassen, indem ich an den kleinen «Vy.gen auf jeder S K ite einen, 

•O', • 

an den gro sen 7’agen auf jeder Sate zwei Denoterla anbringen 
iess, wie ran sie oft an den Bauernhauaem auf dem Lands sieht 
{ Die Wp.gen waren so bekarmt geworden, da -s nicht nur die Bohor- 
den, sondern auch die Zivilbevolke rung en Wagen als "Todes- 
v/agen" bezeichneten, sobi Id eines dieser Pahrzeuge auftauchte . 
& Nach meiner Moinung kann er audh get amt nicht auf die Dauer 


verheimlicht werden-, 


Der Caurerwagen, den foh von -iriferopol raefe Tag,..nrog 
; 'berf.liirte , salts uni;er/e s ‘ rex:s scha der.. Bo im S.r. in ariupo 
wurde festgestellt, da die Far.chete dor komfeinierte Cl*— 

Luftdruclcbremse an. mehre-ren Stellen gsbrochen war. Duron 
redun und lestechung ••• In h.h.p. -plnh es eine Form drehen 

. . der en egos sen 'den. lls ich ?i. 

;i‘ jl? • • -";.v - 


A 


One of a series of communications on 
the many problems with S-Wagons, or 
special vehicles used as mobile gas 
chambers, this report states: “I dis¬ 
guised the wagons as house trailers by 
painting . . . windows like those often 
seen on farmhouses in the country¬ 
side.” Nevertheless, civilians still called 
them “deathwagons.” 


26 




















- o Aa*fertl*m>a«n 

16 . Ausfertlguiig 

l''^ ' .1 5 "/ ^ 

Beaprechunmaprotokoll. 


I. An der am 20.1.1942 In Berlin, Am OroSen 

Wanna*• Hr. 56/58, etattgefundenen Beepranhung lib«r 
<M* Bnd 1 bating der Judonfrag* nal»*u talli 


Saalelter Dr. Meyer und 
Baiokaaatelelter Dr. Lelbbrandt 

Relohemlnleterlum 
fUr die beeetstea 
Ostgeblete 



Staatasekret&r Dr. stuokart 

Belohealnleterlum 
dee Innern 

/t/G- Js?'6 

Staataeekret&r Neumann 

Beauftregter fUr 
den Vlerjahreeplan 

H-Orupp«nf''J'rer ”oiVann 

Rasse- und Siedlungs- 
hauptaot 

gtaataaekrethr Dr. PrelAer 

Relohejuatlsalni- 

eterlua 

ff-OruppenfUlirer MUller 
H-ObereturabannfUhrer Eichmann 

Roiehesioherhelts- 

hauptamt 

Stoateeekretttr Dr. Bflhler 

UnteratxataaekretUr Luther 

Amt dee Oenerel- 
gouvemeure 

Ameerftrtlges Amt 

H-Oberftihrer Dr. 3chBngarth 

Befehlehaber der Slcherheite- 
polizei und des 3D in Oeneral- 
gouvemement 

Slcherheitspolirsi 
und SD 

<H>berfUhrer Klopfer 

Mialeterlaldirektor trltlinger 

Partei-Kanslel 

Relohskanslel 

tf-8turnbannfUhrer Dr. Lange 
Komnandeur der Sicherheltepoli- 
sei und des SD fUr den Oeneral- 
berirk Lettland, ale Vertreter 
des Befehlshabers der Sicher- 
heltspollsei und dee SD fUr dae 
Belehakommlssariat Oetland. 

Sieherheitspollsei 
und SD 


At an interagency meeting chaired by 
Reinhard Heydrich, officials of several 
Nazi government agencies and repre¬ 
sentatives of the SS and police formal¬ 
ized the “final solution of the Jewish 
question,” already in full operation 
since the German invasion of the 
Soviet Union in late June 1941. The 
Berlin-Wannsee meeting, summarized 
in the minutes shown here, inaugu¬ 
rated a systematic plan for the exter¬ 
mination of all Jews in the areas con¬ 
trolled by the Third Reich and its 
satellites. Among those participating in 
the meeting was Adolf Eichmann. 


XI* Chef der Sicherheltspollsei uad des SS, 

H-ObergruppenfUhrer Heydrich, teilte 
eIngangs seine Bestellung sum Beauftragtan fUr din 
Yorbereltung der SidlBsung der europtllsohen Juden- 
trmg* durch den Reichsnarsohall ait uad wles dar- 
auf hin, daO su dleeer Bespreehung geladen wurde, 
am Klarheit in grundstttsllchen Pragen su sohaffen. 
Der Wunech des Reichsmarsohalle, iha elnen ait- 
wurf fiber die organisatoriechen, aachlichen und 
aateriellon 3elange Id Hinbliok auf die BidlBsung 
der europHischen Judenfrage su flbersenden, erfor- 
dert die vorhorige geaeinsaae Be handlung aller 
an diesen Pragen unmittelbar beteiligten Zentrnl- 
iaatar.sen in Hinblici: auf die Parallellelerung 
der lir.1 “rftihrung. 


o 


Minutes of an interagency meeting at Berlin, Am Grossen 
Wannsee 56/58, January 20, 1942. RG 238, Niirnberg 
Document NG 2586; RG 242, Microfilm Publication 
T120, roll 780. 


27 






, i'iwmw'u - ifH 



Shown here is one of seven death- 
books from the concentration camp at 
Mauthausen. It lists chronologically, by 
inmate name and number, 35,227 
deaths between January 7, 1939, and 
April 29, 1945. This page shows the 
national or ethnic origin, name, birth- 
date, birthplace, and cause and time of 
death of 32 people — Russian, Polish, 
Czech, and German Christians as well 
as Jews. Among the various causes of 
death are listed “angina,” “heart 
attack,” “kidney insufficiency,” 
“extreme intestinal catarrh,” “suicide 
by hanging, ” “suicide from effect of 
high-tension electricity,” and “shot 
while attempting to escape. ” 




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A separate Prisoner of War Deathbook 
for the Mauthausen-Gusen concentra¬ 
tion camp lists 5,695 numbered 
deaths and several hundred unnum¬ 
bered deaths. The pages shown list 
21 of 25 Russian POWs with Mau¬ 
thausen) inmate numbers as being exe¬ 
cuted simultaneously at 23.35 (11:35 
p.m.) on May 9, 1942. At the bottom 
of the page are the first 9 of 208 So¬ 
viet POWs bearing Jewish names who 
were assigned entry numbers but were 
not in camp long enough to be 
assigned inmate numbers; all were 
executed simultaneously at 0.15 
(12:15 a.m.) on May 10, 1942. The 
cause of death is listed as justifiziert 
(justified) by a wireless order from 
Heydrich’s Reich Security Central 
Office. 

Totenbuch KGF (Prisoner of War Deathbook) 
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, October 1941 
and March 30, 1945 (pages 234-235 shown). RG 238, 
Niirnberg Document 495, Exhibit USA 250. 



“[All Soviet prisoners are to be screened for] elements 
undesirable for political, criminal, or other reasons... 
functionaries of the Comintern ... Peoples Commissars 
and their deputies ... former political commissars of the 
Red Army [and]... all Jews ... the commandos are to 
demand from the camp command the surrender of the 
specified prisoners ... Executions are not to be held in 
the camp or in the immediate vicinity." 

Order by Reinhard Heydrich, July 17, 1941 (Regulations 
for the Commandos of the Security Police and Service to 
be detailed to Stalags), sanctioned by a signed agree¬ 
ment with the German Armed Forces High Command, 
consequent to Hitler’s presumably oral “Commissar 
Order" of spring 1941. 


29 



























Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizel 
und dee 8D 

* B t »r. IV A 1 - 1 B/41 - kBb - 


Berlin, den 7. Okt. 1941. 


46 Auafertigungon. 

Auefertigung. 


Breignismeldung UdSSB Hr. 106. 


I. Bolitlsehe tfberslcht. 


Aueland: 


g r O a t 1 e a : 



Das Einsatzkoramando der Sieherheitapolizei und des SD- 
Agram -• oieldet: .*»- «•* 



Am 30.9. wurden van 3 Zivilisten 3 deutache 
Flieger aua den Hinterhalt besohosaen. Sin Flieger 
war sofort tot, der andere starb la Daufe der 
Naoht und der dritte Segt mit scbwerem 1ungen- 
steoksohuse im Krankenhaus, 

Es handelt sich urn einen kenmunistlschen An- 
8ohlag, In Zuge der Ermlttlimgsaktion wurden bls- 
her 17 Personen festgenommen. 


One of a series of 250 periodic reports 
on the activities of the Einsatzgruppen 
(SS and police mobile commando 
units) in German-occupied Russia and 
eastern Europe from June 1941 until 
May 1943. Most of these reports in¬ 
cluded figures that showed how many 
hundreds of thousands of Jews were 
executed. This document records the 
mass shooting on September 29 and 
30, 1941, of precisely 33,771 Jews at 
Babi Yar, a ravine near the city of Kiev 
in Ukraine. 



\ 



Report, Ereignismeldungen UdSSR Nr. 106 (Reports on 
Events in the U.S.S.R., No. 106), October 7, 1941. RG 238, 
Niirnberg Document NO 314 



30 











SS Capt. Dr. Sigmund Rascher, on 
duty as a Luftwaffe medical officer, 
reported on high-altitude experiments 
he performed at the Dachau concen¬ 
tration camp. Included in the report 
are 41 photographs, one of which 
shows a Versuchsperson (experiment 
person) during “an extended experi¬ 
ment without oxygen at 12 kilometers 
altitude. ’’ The subject died. Himmler 
noted in green pencil: “sehr interes- 
sant" (very interesting). 






- -- o*-' 

/ 

Dr. med. S:gmund Rascher 

L'iinchen, aen :>. ± 


ijocLverchrter HeichafUhrer ; 

i it'/ / 

Anile end folgt ein Zwii.chenbericht iiWr die bisher 
angesteliten Unterdruckkammerversuche lir. KL Dachau. 

Darf lch gehorsumst bitten, den Beric.it i.eheltn zu bchandeln. 

Vor elnlgen Tagen sab sich der Reichsaxzt-SS, Professor 
Dr. Grawltz die Versuchsanordnung kurz an. Da er zeitlich 3ehr 
knapp war konr.ten ihm keinerlei Versuche vor&eftLhrt werden. 
LS-ObersturrnbannfUhrer oievers nahrn sich einen Tag Zelt uir 
einige der Interessanten litandardversuche anzusehen und wlrd 
vielleicht schon kurz daruber berichtet haben. Ich glaube, 
hochverehrter ReichsfUhrer, cs wiirdjm Sie die3e Versuche 
auflerord ntlich interessleren ! 1st es nicht moglich, daB Sie 
sich anlafilich einer Keise nach Suddeutschland einige Versuche 
** vorfUhren laJ3en ? Jlem 3ich die blsherigen VersuchsergebnisB% J 
nueh weiterhin b^stitigen, so ergeben slch>fiir die tfisaenseiiaft 
vollkommer. neue Resultate, ebenso werden flfr die Lvftfahrt 
restlos nerue Gesichtspunkte gecchaffen. 

Ich hoffe, daB mir die Luftwaffe dank der geplanten Bercti- 
*^ungen von SS-ObersturmbannfUhrer Sic vers weiterhin keine 

Schwier igke iten in den .Veg leger. v.-ird* sS-Obersturtnbamfxihrer 
Sievers bin ich zu groiierr Dank verpflichtet, da er in jeder 
Beziehung sehr tatiges Inter esse fUr meine Arbeit zeigt, 

Ich danke Ihnen, hochverehrter Reichafuhrer gehorsarast 
fur die groBzugige Verwlrklichung meines Vorschlages, Versuche 
dieser Art im KL auszul'Uhren. 

Mit den ergebensten Jlinschen fUr Ihr rfohlergehen bin ich 

mit 

Heil Hitler ! 

*V 

5. 



do 

.*/ 

U9 

I 


oe 



tf7f-rs 


a 


ji3ghenbericht_Uber die Untcrdruckkcromerygrsuche 
im KL Dachau 


1,4s gilt die Frage zu klaren, ob die theoretisch ermittelten 

Werte Uber die Lebensdauer des Menschen in Sauerstoff-armer Luft 
und niedxigecn Druck znit den im praktischen Verwich gewonnenen 
- Result aten Ubereinstimmen. Es besteht die Behauptung, daB ein 
Fallschirmsprlnger bei Absprung aus 12 km Hbhe durch den Sauerstaff 
mangel 3chwerste Schadigungen, wahrsoheinltcherweise sogar den 
Tod erleide. Praktische Versuche liber dieses Then* wurden stets 
nach maximal 53 Sekunden abgebrochen, da schwerste Hbhenkrankheit 
auftritt* bezw. auftrat. 

2. Versuche Uber die Lebensdauer eines Menschen oberhalb der normal® 
Atemgrenze 14,5 - 6 km) wurden Uberhaupt nioht angestellt, da 
mit Sicherheit feststand, daB die Versuchsperson 1 Vp ) den Tod 
erleiden mUBe. 

Die von mir und Dr. Romberg angestellten Versuche 

zeigten zu 

1. Der Sauerstoffmangel bezw. der nledere athmosph&rische Druck 
haben im ?sJ.l 3 chirmsinkversuch weder aus 12 km noch aus 13 km 
Hbhe tbdlich gewirkt. Es wurden insgesamt 15 Extremversuche 
dieser Art angestellt, wobei keine der Vp den Tod erlitt^ 

Es trat schwerste Hdhenkrankheit mit Bewusstlosigkeit auf,-~ 
jedoch stets vttllige Aktionsfahigkeit, wenn etwa 7 kn Hdhe 
im Abstieg erreicht war. Die hlerbei ausgefUhrten Elektrcn- 
kardiogransne zeigten wohl wahrend des Versuchee gewlsse 
UnregelmaBigkeiten, jedoch bis Vcrsuchsende waren die Kurven. 
zur Norm zurUckgekehrt und zeigten auch an den darauffolgen- 
den Tagen keinerlei krankha^te Veranderungen an. In kiewelt 
eine AbnUtzung des Organlsmus duroh sich inmer wiederholende 
Versuche ei'ntritt, laBt sich erst am SchluB der Vereuchs- 
reihen feststellen. Die extremen,todlichen,Versuche werden 
an besonders zugeteilten Vp vorgenommen, da sonst eine derar 
ge Kontrolle, welche fUr die Praxis ausserordentliche 
fichtig'eit besitzt, nioht mdglich w&re. 



Letter and report, Dr. Sigmund Rascher to Reichsfuhrer- 
SS Heinrich Himmler, April 5, 1942 (second page of re¬ 
port only). RG 238, Case I, Medical Case, Prosecution 
Exhibit 49, Document 1971 (a) and Prosecution 
Exhibit 41, Nurnberg Document NO 610-14. 


31 












-S^fv 4£>tytcfrwf 2 uj ft+i fn£ 4+Ul JV<r ‘^Oct^ft-^. 


“These bandits defended themselves with weapons." 


To justify his brutal suppression of the 
Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, 
April 20 to May 15, 1943, the SS 
commander, Jurgen Stroop, added to 
copies of his daily battle reports a final 
report that included a list of casualties 
incurred by his troops plus some 50 
hand-captioned photographs. Iron¬ 
ically, this report unintentionally 
provides the best contemporary docu¬ 
mentation of heroic Jewish resistance 
against overwhelming odds. 




“The Commander of the Great Action" 


Report (closed), "Es gibt keinin judischen Wohnbezirk in 
Warschau mehr!” (There is no longer a Jewish quarter in 
Warsaw!) with photographic appendix (open), May 16, 
1943, prepared by SS Brigadier and Major General of the 
Police Jurgen Stroop, SS and Police Leader of Warsaw. 

RG 238, Niirnberg Document 1061 PS, Exhibit USA 275. 






32 





From early April 1944 until mid- 
January 1945, Allied photographic re¬ 
connaissance was regularly flown over 
the I. G. Farben complex at Auschwitz 
to prepare for bombing a synthetic fuel 
plant under construction. To ensure 
complete coverage, cameras were 
turned on well before arrival at the 
target and ran after the target was 
passed, resulting in many photographs 
that went unanalyzed. Neither Allied 
aircrews nor photoanalysts had the 
equipment, time, or mission to analyze 
anything but photographs of the target 
areas. In this case, by concentrating 
exclusively on the Farben plant, they 
missed photographs of the extermina¬ 
tion camp, eight kilometers away. 

Thirty-four years later, photoanalysts 
from the CIA’s National Photographic 
Interpretation Center (NPIC), applying 
advanced technology unavailable dur¬ 
ing World War II, located aerial photo¬ 
graphs that reveal extermination and 
other activities under way at concen¬ 
tration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. 
They were able to identify details in 
these photographs only because they 
had access to postwar accounts and 
contemporary captured German re¬ 
cords, which suggested precisely 
where and for what to look. 


(Top left) This is a blowup from the August 25 
photograph, enlarged, cropped, and captioned by NPIC 
analysts in 1978. The group described as “PRISONERS 
ON WAY TO GAS CHAMBERS” appears to be on its way 
from the railroad siding across the tracks to “GAS 
CHAMBER AND CREMATORIUM II,” the gate of which is 
open. Dino Brugioni and Robert C. Poirier, “The Holo¬ 
caust Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Ausch¬ 
witz-Birkenau Extermination Camp Complex” (1978), 
photograph 6, page 11. 



(Top right) On August 25, 1944, this original photograph 
was also taken by an aircraft of the South African 60th 
PR Squadron. RG 373, Can F5637, frame 3185; Mission: 
60PR/694 60 Sq; Scale: 1/10,000; Focal Length: 36"; 
Altitude: 30,000'. 

(Bottom) This aerial photograph was taken on June 26, 
1944, by the 60th (South African) Photo Reconnaissance 
(PR) Squadron based in Bari, Italy. It shows the layout of 
all three parts of the Auschwitz concentration camp com¬ 
plex: The Main Camp I, Birkenau Camp II, and the 
I. G. Farben Buna plant at Monowitz Camp III. RG 373, 
Records of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Can C1172, 
frame 5022; Mission: 60PR/522, 60 Sq; Scale: 

1/60,000; Focal Length: 6"; Altitude: 30,000'. 


33 












Oar Inspaktaur (Or Stattstik 
b« lm Raich sfUhrar ff 


Oeheime Reichssache 



sib bwblosttto bbb (JBarUsaua jvxnnuoB 


Items IV through X of this table of 
contents read: 


Itatlstlsohar Barlobt 
I a h a 1 t i 
Z. VorboBarfcuag 

^ XI. Bl. Judactllan* is Deutaohlaad 

( III. Jfidlsoha voik»»ohw»oh« 

TV Die Mmand^rang Aar Judas bus Brutsohland 
* V. 01s Brakularuax Aar Judas 

^ n . Ola JSdan Is dan Osattoa 

VIZ. Old Judas Is das lassestratIonalasers 
YZZI. Judas is JuatlsvoU.sufSanaValt.il 
H. Oar Artoaltaalsasts dax Judas 
X. auropKlsahs Jud-ufilass 


a 

t 


a 

♦ 


4 


I 

1 


-9- 

V. DIE KVAK’JUROVO DfcR JUDES 

Dl« BTtkularniif dvr Judvn ltfvtv, vvnigvtvn* la Aviohvgvblvt, 
41« Auawand*rung Avr Juden «b. 31* word* wit dan Vvrbot d«r 
JUdlaakvc Au*wandvrung vb Bvrbvt 1941 in groftva Stilt vor- 
bvrvltvl and la Jafcrv 1942 la gvaaatva Rvlohagablvt *«lt- 
(tbtnd durohgvfllhrt. In dtr Bilans daa JulvBtuaa vrvahvlnt 
•It alt *Ab*andvnz&g*. 

Bit 1 #1 #1943 uand«rt*n naoh dtn ZuvasaBvcvtvllongvn dtt 
Ivlchvviohvrhvltvhauptvatvi abi 

100 516 Judvo 
47 555 ' 

69 677 « 

217 748 Judtn 

In dltttn Zafcltn tlnd auoh dla lnt Altvrvghvtto Tbtrttitn- 
^ atadt trakularitn Judtn anthalitn. 


aua dta Altraloh alt sudattclaad 

aut dtr uataark 

aut dta Protaktorat 


Dlt ftaaattn Avakularungan argabac la Rvlohagablvt alnaohl. 
Ottf tbit tan und dar*lbtr hlnaua la dautsoten Uaoht- 'Jnd Sln- 
fluibaralch In Suropa von .'ktobtr 1939 Oder apJltar bla sua 
51.12.1942 folganda Zahltn: 


• I* Bvmkuiaroni, von Judtn aut Baden 

und dtr Pfal« naoh Prankrtlob. 6 504 Judtn 

2. BVakularung von Judtn aut dea Ralohs- 
gabiat alnaohl. Protaktorat und 

• Btslrk Blalyatok nach Oatan . 170 642 • 

3a Bvakularung von Judtn nut dam Reicha- 

gabiat und da* Protaktorat 

BSab . 67 19J * 

w 4. TransportItrung von Judtn aua dtn 

Ottprovlnsen nach dtm rutsleohen 


Es turden durchgeaohlauat 
duroh dlt Tagar la Uanaral- 

S oizvtrnta.tnt... 1 274 166 Judtn 

urch dlt Lager la tarthegau. 145 301 

5. Bvak iltrung von Judtn aua andtren 
Lftndara, nlallohi 

/rankre 1 oh (aoaeit vor dtm 

lo.l 1.1942 btattit).41 911 Judtn 

Kledtrlandt........ 38 571 * 

Btlgltn. .... 16 806 " 

Soraagen...... 532 


•ie- 


Sber. Aucta Aar tand.ruaif sstroai d.r Judss aua dan .uropKlsohss 
Itndarn auSarhalb dss dsutsohss Elnfluaa.a 1st slsa ».itf«h*nd 
uabskimnt. OriJBs. Iftsxssaat dtlrfte daa curenaiaahs Judantun 
mi. tin At natl<mf L l»otUllaU.,oh ro 

HMhlffiUEllMM. Wt dla Mlfts s.lssa Bsstsndas v.r- 

Isxm 4aki>» 


IV. Emigration of Jews from Germany 

V. Evacuation of Jews 

VI. Jews in Ghettos 

VII. Jews in Concentration Camps 

VIII. Jews in Prisons 

IX. Forced Labor of Jews 

X. Balance [Sheet] on European Jews 

The last half-page of the report, shown 
here, says in part, “In sum, European 
Jewry since 1933, . . . will soon have 
lost half of its substance, "through 
murder and immigration. Korherr had 
better access to the figures than any¬ 
one before or since, yet he, too, had to 
estimate the number of Jews killed. It 
is no surprise that unbiased postwar 
estimates range from 5 million to 6V2 
million dead, a discrepancy of stagger¬ 
ing human cost, but of no moral 
difference. 

Heinrich Himmler returned the report 
to Dr. Korherr for revision, instructing 
him to substitute ‘‘transportation of 
Jews to the Russian east, ’’ for the 
widely recognized phrase ‘‘special 
handling of Jews, ” so that the fact of 
murder was not explicitly stated. In 
reality, the report estimates how many 
Jews had been "transported" to their 
deaths and how many remained to be 
killed. Simple subtraction would tell 
the tale. 


“Statistical Report, Final Solution of the Jewish Question 
in Europe,” table of contents and pages 9 and 16 shown. 
Reported by Dr. Richard Korherr, Inspector for Statistics 
to Reichsfuhrer-SS, March 27, 1943. RG 238, Nurnberg 
Document NO 5194. 

“I hold this report, at best, as material for later times, to 
be sure quite good for camouflage purposes. At the 
moment, it may neither be published or circulated. Most 


important to me, now as before, is that as many Jews as 
humanly possible be transported to the East. In the short 
monthly reports of the Security Police, I want merely to 
be informed what has been transported monthly, and 
what at that point in time still remains of Jews." 

Himmler to Korherr, April 9, 1943. RG 238, Niirnberg 
Document NO 5197. 


34 























m t 






4W 









fr*i 

Jh^l/jih >L< Ti ■- 


rrij^hfa^; 







V'i!88-H i 


On October 4, 1943, Reichsfuhrer-SS 
and Chief of German Police Heinrich 
Himmler spoke to more than 100 SS 
leaders in a hotel lounge at Poznan 
(Posen), Poland, about recent SS 
prosecution of the war. His handwrit¬ 
ten notes include only one reference to 
Jews : Judenevakuierung (evacuation 
of Jews). But on the large-type tran¬ 
script from this recording — the words 
he actually spoke — he used the phrase 
Ausrottung (extirpation) of Jews and 
goes on to say “Most of you will know 
what it means when 100 corpses . . . 
when 500 corpses or 1000 corpses 
are lying there. . . . This is a glorious 
page in our history, never written, and 
perhaps never to be written. " 




- 6b - 

hattan, an die .and zu ste lion und zu erschlefien 
genau so *er,1g nao&n sir caruotr jeaals geapro- 
chen und *erden j« darubor sprechen. is tar 
elne, Gottseloank In uns sobnende Selbstver- 
stand 11ch ke11 des Taktes, dass tlr uns unter- 
elnander nit caruber unterhalten haben, nle 
daruber sprachen. is hat Jeden geschaudert 
und doch tar slch jedbr klar daruber, dass ar 
as das nucnsto «al aleder tun turda^ tenn as 
befohlen wlrd und tenn as nottendlg 1st. 

Ich atlne Jetzt dls Juden.vakuleruny, die 
Ausrottung das judlschtn Volkes. ts gehbrt zu 
den fllngen, die tan lulcht aussprtcht. - n Oas 
Judlscne Volk vlrd ausgerottet", sagt aln Jader 
ParttIgenossa, “ganz klar, steht In unsarss 
Prograss, Ausschaltung der Judtn, Ausrottung, 
•achen air? dnG dann koasen tie alia an, die 
braven 8u Ulllone'n Oautschan, und Jeder hat 
selnen anstandlgen Juden. £s 1st ]a klar, die 
anderen slnd Schaelne, aber dteser etne 1st eln 
prlsa Jude. Von alien, die so reden, hat 
ketner zugesehen, kelner hat es durchgestanden. 

^Von £uch aerden die selsten tlssen, aas es 
helsst, aenn 100 Lelchen belsaesen It gen, aenn 
500 dallegtn Oder aenn 10JU dallsgen. Dies 
durchgehalten zu haben, und dabel - abgesehen 
von Ausnahsen senschllcher Schtachen - ansUn- 
dlg gebllebenzu sain, das hat uns hart gesacht. 
Dies 1st eln nleials gesc'nrit bunas und nleaals 

n« -66- 


Handwritten notes for and a typed transcript of a speech 
given by Heinrich Himmler on October 4, 1943. 

RG 238, Niirnberg Document 1919 PS, Exhibit USA 170. 

"The question arose for us: what about women and chil¬ 
dren?—I decided here, too, to find a clear-cut solution. I 
did not believe myself justified to root out the men — say 
also, to kill them, or to have them killed —and to allow 
avengers in the form of their children to grow up for our 
sons and grandsons [to confront]. The hard decision had 
to be made for this people to disappear from the earth." 

Speech by Heinrich Himmler to Nazi Party Reich and Gau 
(Region) Leaders in Posen City Hall on October 6, 1943. 
RG 242, Microfilm Publication T175, Roll 85, frame 168, 
page 17 of 49 in speech transcript. 


35 







1 



Hiltler’s dream of a thousand-year 
Reich failed. Himmler’s “glorious” — 
but unknown — chapter of German his¬ 
tory became widely known as soon as 
Allied soldiers entered the concentra¬ 
tion camps in 1945. The Jewish people 
did not “disappear from the earth.” 
Some inmates who walked out of 
those camps told and re-told their tales 
of horror. Other survivors — those who 
escaped before they were sent to con¬ 
centration camps or those who hero¬ 
ically resisted — also told their tales. 
Authenticated by the Nazis’ own pa¬ 
perwork, these survivors’ stories help 
ensure that the world will never forget. 

A measure of the loss is in the accom¬ 
plishments of the living. What might 
those who died have contributed? 

1. Young people on their way to Palestine, survivors of 
Buchenwald. 

RG 111, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Offi¬ 
cer, lll-SC-207907 

2. Nobel peace prize winner and novelist Elie Wiesel, 
survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, with 
Benjamin Meed, businessman and president of the 
American Gathering, Federation of Jewish Holocaust 
Survivors. Meed is a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto 
uprising of April 1943. 

Courtesy of the American Gathering, Federation of 
Jewish Holocaust Survivors 

3. Hungarian actress Nador Livia, survivor of Gusen. 

RG 111, lll-SC-204810 

4. Congressman Tom Lantos and his wife Annette 
escaped Hungary with the aid of Raoul Wallenberg, 
whose picture the Congressman holds in his hands. 
Courtesy of Congressman Lantos 

5. Physicist Edward Teller fled Hungary during the 
1930s, when Nazi-instigated anti-Semitism was on 
the rise. Teller made important contributions to the 
development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs. 

RG 111, lll-SC-490546 


36 










For Further Reading 


Alport, Gordon. The Nature of Prejudice. Garden 
City, NY: Doubleday, 1958. 

Berenbaum, Michael, ed. A Mosaic of Victims: Non- 
Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis. New 
York: New York University Press, 1990. 

Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews, 
1933-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 
1986. 

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of European Jews. 
New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985. 

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Ralph Manheim, trans. 
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943. 

Kamenetsky, Ihor. Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern 
Europe: A Study of Lebensraum Policies. New York: 
Bookman Associates, 1961. 

Noakes, Jeremy, and Geoffrey Pridham, eds. 

Nazism: A History in Documents and Eyewitness 
Accounts, 1919-1945. 2 vols. New York: 

Schocken, 1988. 

Office of the U.S. Chief Counsel for the Prosecution 
of Axis Criminality. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. 
10 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing 
Office, 1946, 1947-48. 

Remak, Joachim, ed. Nazi Years: A Documentary 
History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969. 

Wytwycky, Bohdan. The Other Holocaust: Many Cir¬ 
cles of Hell. Washington, DC: The Novak Report, 
1980. 


37 









































An exhibit of posters featuring captured German records from the 
National Archives documents Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question” 


HOLOCAUST: THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE 


The Nazis Themselves Bear Witness 

The Nazi plan for genocide was classified “ultra¬ 
secret.” But assembling and transporting Jews from 
all corners of Europe to extermination sites in 
occupied Poland was a complex operation and gen¬ 
erated much coordinating paperwork among the SS 
and other Nazi agencies. 

A large number of these records were captured 
by the Allies and used as evidence in war crimes 
trials held since 1945 at Nurnberg and elsewhere. 
The National Archives and Records Administration 
has preserved for posterity this authentic, contem¬ 
porary documentation of the Holocaust. 

For many viewers, the documentary evidence will 
prove as chilling as the most graphic photographs 
from the era. These records provide a larger frame¬ 
work for individual, incomprehensible events. In all, 
21 original documents - including German- 
language texts, transcripts, and photographs - have 
been reproduced along with brief captions that 
explain the significance of each. 

Flexible Format for Diverse Settings 

The exhibit can be installed easily in almost any 
space. The user may choose to display all 17 
posters or to hang a small selection of them. The 
package has been designed to enable schools, 
libraries, historical societies, and other groups to 
adapt the material to their own audiences, educa¬ 
tional goals, exhibition facilities, and budgets. The 
posters, which are printed on heavy paper and 
packaged in a sturdy cardboard mailing tube, may 
be dry-mounted, matted, or framed for exhibition. 
Each measures 22 x 28 inches. 



lb pmily >u» truMl wppmmiii ■4 the Jrwufl uptttiMt In Our Wbrtmr GlwtHx 
April ',5'to VU> lx IMS livShcvrimvanOrr lurvro ukk-tl tncoptetof hi* 

dally I amir refstru • final report tiui imlndcd * fat ol ■-axualiki incurred by 


HOLOCAUST: THE 


Plan Your Own Exhibit or Educational 
Program Now - Order Today 

During the 12 years of the Third Reich - between 
Nazi assumption of power in Germany on January 
30, 1933, and unconditional surrender on V-E day, 
May 8, 1945 - the Jews of Germany and Nazi- 
occupied Europe were subjected to discrimination, 
loss of citizenship and property, exile, and near 
extermination. So that the world will never forget, 
Days of Remembrance are observed each spring in 
locations around the world. 


To order the complete poster exhibit, send a check or 
official purchase order (payable to the National Archives 
Trust Fund) for $50 plus $3 shipping and handling to: 
National Archives Trust Fund, NEDC, P.O. Box 100793, 
Atlanta, GA 30384. 

VISA and MasterCard are accepted; please provide the 
account number, expiration date, and cardholder’s 
signature. Credit card orders may call toll free 
1-800-788-6282, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 
4:30 p.m. EST. 


BE SURE TO SPECIFY ITEM #6059, HOLOCAUST EXHIBIT. 


Please allow 3-4 weeks for delivery. 
Thank you for your order. 















































































































































































































































































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